The Art of Loneliness
by Deathofme
Summary: Post 'Distractions'. So maybe I love you.


**A/N Post 'Distractions'. Because it had to be written. Happy Valentines Day.**

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I'm lonely. So sue me.

That's what he wished he could say, and it was odd that he would restrain himself from saying anything on his mind. But this…this he kept to himself. He wasn't sure why. Why shouldn't they know? Why shouldn't he just spit it out? They were just words after all. Lots of things were just words. Apologies, condolences, proposals, just…words.

"Bum leg?"

Pause.

"Yeah."

She wasn't a hooker. Not really. She was a student at a college nearby, and goodness knows why the young and perfectly nubile would be willing to take _any_ sort of foray into the sexual grounds. What mattered to him now was that she was willing, and too old to pull the 'but she looked of age' thing on him. She had a wicked grin on her face as she set her attentions to his right leg, but it didn't illicit a spike of interest through him.

So I'm lonely. So what?

He knows why he can't say it, or that he just chooses not to. It's not that he's admitting he's lonely, he's happy to admit that, it's the attitude and tone that comes with it. That's what he wants to keep from them. Because either they know, or they don't know and if they don't than nothing he says can penetrate, and if they do, it doesn't matter what he says because they know. They know to leave it alone.

"Tell me if it hurts."

"I took vicodin, I'll be fine."

I'm lonely. Do you think I care?

And that's the gist of it. He's lonely. He's been alone, he is in a void away from pain, away from inertia, away from anything. And that's just how it is, and he doesn't care. It's his life. It's the way of his life. He can't see it as a problem or some kind of psychological obstacle he has to overcome, because he's never known any different. He doesn't care to know any different, and it only becomes a problem when other people try to force him to look at it as one.

Oh, it's complicated, and simplicity is what he searches for. Simple is a white pill, simple is a glass of whiskey.

"How do you want me?"

She's trying to play him, her full head of hair tossing this way and that way.

"Between my legs."

Why do you have to care? I don't understand you. That's what the words mean. So I'm lonely. So you're not a natural blonde. So this chair is orange. So…so what? You want to change the orange chair into a black one? Sure, you could spray paint it, but what's the point? The very nature of it being orange isn't something that's destructive or productive, it just _is_.

And I wish you would see it that way.

Not just Stacey, not just Cameron, and not just Wilson. Just everybody. Everybody who can say, so I'm not lonely, so what? What makes you so much better than me? What makes what I say the product of some damaged soul, the product of years of bitterness and hurt that it can all be cast aside with some psycho-babble rationale? Why can you discount everything I say? And when I discount what you say, it all comes back to being my _problem_. Couldn't you just listen? What's so hard with listening? They're only words after all.

I'm sorry, Greg.

I understand, Greg.

I love you, Greg.

Just words.

"Oh…"

She sighs, and he comes, and she does as well. It was more satisfying than he had expected, but it wasn't everything he had hoped, though that was guaranteed from the beginning. You can't expect a night of no strings attached to give you more than words, right?

"Was that distracting enough for you?"

She looks pleased with herself, sweaty, breathless, and he looks and looks at her. She needs words.

"Very much so."

And he stays quiet, because he gave her the words she needed to hear, and she dresses, while he dresses, and she leaves without a word, but a smile, because she thinks that's what he needs.

It's not, but that's okay, she's got an excuse. They'd only just met. He wonders if he'll do it again, and thinks probably not.

Because this distraction, he hadn't thought of. This distraction didn't come from his own gears moving. It was something the not lonely thought the lonely needed, and he'd tried, despite the inevitable understanding he has of himself, inside himself. It was okay, but it was just sounds. It doesn't leave anything coherent.

And so maybe I love you, but maybe I'm afraid of you at the same time. Maybe it's because I know how it will end, and maybe because I can't handle it if I'm right about you. Because maybe you don't love me at all, because maybe you really _can't_ see me as more than lonely, and because maybe that's all I will ever be to you, and in such a hopeless context I will never amount to anything unless I chisel away everything I'm not to become everything you want. And maybe it's _your_ nature that has to change, but maybe I just don't want anyone to have to do that…

And maybe, just maybe Allison, Stacey, even you James…the word maybe is not enough for me.

And those are the words I could give you, and those are the words you say you need to hear. But I know that's not true, and you know it too. Besides, why should I give you words, when I get nothing but smiles from you? Smiles and trembling hopes that really don't apply to me. Hopes that I don't need.

He sits in his apartment and he's lonely. He may not be content, he's probably not satisfied and he's definitely miserable. But that's apart from lonely. There's an art to loneliness.

And these are all just words, aren't they? Like love and sorry and problem and life and death and vertigo and change and time and the and end.

So, the. And end.


End file.
